Sidelines
by Lamia of the Dark
Summary: [Drabble Collection] Standing on the sidelines of their closest friends' odd non-relationship, Yukihito Yashiro and Kanae Kotonami develop a romantic entanglement of their own.
1. a

**DISCLAIMER: Skip Beat! belongs to Yoshiki Nakamura.**

~ Sidelines ~

"Hey, let me borrow your phone."

It was more of a demand than a question, but Yashiro supposed he should consider himself honored that the girl considered him close enough to being a friend that she didn't need to fake politeness toward him anymore. Kanae Kotonami was the type who spoke her mind without reserve among family and friends, social etiquette be damned.

Yashiro was snapped out of his thoughts by a series of short, sharp clicks - the sound of Kanae tapping her foot impatiently while she waited for him to comply with her request.

"Huh? Oh, sure..." he responded belatedly, fishing his phone out of his pocket and handing it over.

She took it without a single word of thanks, completely ignoring him as she tapped a rapid series of keys. She stared at the screen for a moment and then handed the phone back to him.

 _She's done already?_ His curiosity getting the better of him, he asked, "What did you do?"

The words were barely out of his mouth when an electronic tone sounded from roughly the direction of Kanae's purse. She quickly fished out her cell phone and started fiddling with it, still apparently ignoring him.

 _Why did she borrow my phone if she has her own with her?_ he wondered, nonplussed.

"I sent myself a text message," she answered, not looking up from what she was doing.

"What? Why...?"

"You can read if it you want. I don't care."

He hadn't bothered with a glove earlier, as his skin-to-phone contact had lasted less than ten seconds per handoff, but he pulled one on now before extracting his phone from his pocket once more and checking the most recent sent message.

He stared at the screen for a moment, then glanced up to see that Kanae had finished whatever she'd been doing and was now looking at him expectantly.

"It just says 'a'," he said in confusion.

"Yeah," she replied unhelpfully. Her expression seemed to imply that she was waiting for him to realize something, but when he just kept staring at his phone with his eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, she gave up and walked away.

* * *

Later that same day, Ren - having misplaced his own phone - asked to borrow his manager's phone. Yashiro, not realizing that he'd left the message screen pulled up earlier, handed it over without thinking to check it first.

"Yashiro-san..." Ren said, when he saw what was on the screen. "It seems you may have accidentally sent a text message to an unfamiliar number."

"I don't think so," Yashiro replied, frowning.

Ren flashed the screen at him, showing him the text message sent to a number that wasn't saved in his contacts. The message itself just said 'a'.

"Oh, that," Yashiro said, chuckling. "Kotonami-san sent that to herself from my phone."

"Ah... I see," Ren said, wondering if his manager realized... but Yashiro was constantly reading things that weren't there into Ren's non-relationship with Kyoko, so surely he couldn't be so dense about what was going on here with Kanae?

Before he went on the internet to look up a reference he hadn't understood, Ren saved Kanae's number to Yashiro's contact list. If that had indeed been the girl's purpose in sending that message to herself, he was sure they would both be grateful for this action later.

~oOo~

 **A/N:** For anyone who is confused - the 'a' does not mean anything. The text message to herself was so she could get his phone number.


	2. To Know a Rose By Her Thorns

~ Sidelines ~

Kanae hadn't really interacted with Tsuruga or Tsuruga's manager much, but it stood to reason that that would end up changing. With the common factor between them being Kyoko, the more time Kanae spent with her "best friend" the more likely she was to end up being forced to interact with Tsuruga and Yashiro.

Of course it had to happen while the girls were in the middle of a Love Me section assignment, wearing those cursed pink coveralls. Kyoko no longer became embarrassed about being seen in the Love Me uniform, but the humiliation of it was constantly smoldering within Kanae whether she was seen by anyone or not, and being seen by someone who actually knew her (or even sort-of knew her, since she wasn't really that well acquainted with Tsuruga anyway) sent those feelings boiling over.

Tsuruga politely greeted the girls, addressing them by their surnames. Kanae managed to return a polite greeting with a straight face, although she was internally screaming.

Yashiro also greeted the two of them, and although at first it seemed as though he was only planning on speaking to Kyoko, he belatedly added "...and Kanae-chan."

Having known nothing of the girl's general temperament beforehand, Yashiro appeared quite shocked when Kanae subsequently lost her shit.

" _Who are you calling 'Kanae-chan'?_ " she shrieked. " _You don't even KNOW me!_ "

"M-moko-san," Kyoko whispered fearfully, plucking at her friend's sleeve.

Tsuruga and Yashiro were both staring at her in shock over her outburst.

 _Wait, his first name is Yuki-something, right? Yukihiro or Yukihito_... Kanae's rage visibly subsided, and she merely looked slightly annoyed as she pointed at Yashiro and declared him: "Yuki-chan."

Having somewhat recovered his wits, Yashiro responded, "Um... would you prefer if I called you 'Moko-san' like Kyoko-chan does?"

"Then I'll call you Yu-chan."

"Moko-chan?"

"Y-chan."*

"Mika-chan?"*

"Ii-chan."*

~oOo~

*when she calls him "Y-chan" she's pronouncing it "why" like the name of the letter. When she calls him "Ii-chan" she's pronouncing the Y as if it were a vowel. He got "Mika" by combining the last syllable of her last name with the first syllable of her first name. (At this point he was just continuing to tease her to see what she would call him next, since she couldn't make his name any shorter after shortening it to "Y".)


	3. A Taste of His Own Medicine

~ Sidelines ~

Since Yashiro always seemed to take such joy in teasing him about his relationship (or lack thereof) with Kyoko, Ren was happy to finally have some ammunition to fight back with.

Today when his manager brought up the subject of a recent incident involving Kyoko, Ren merely flashed him a playful grin and said, "So, have you been calling any young women you just met by their first names without permission lately, _Yuki-chan_?"

Yashiro's face cycled through an interesting progression of different expressions before he slumped against the car door in defeat and mumbled, "Fine, I can see you don't want to talk about it."

"Speaking of Kyoko," Ren said, and Yashiro perked up at the girl's name. "With those faces you were making just now, you reminded me of her."

Ren chuckled as Yashiro pouted. It was fun giving his manager a taste of his own medicine for once.

~oOo~


	4. Time, How You Punish Me

~ Sidelines ~

"Really, Ren, you don't need to come into the store with me," Yashiro protested.

"I don't mind accompanying you on your errands," Ren replied, shooting his manager a scary-sparkly smile.

"It's really not necessary!"

Ren chuckled at the older man's vehement insistence that he need not follow him.

"Besides, I'm curious what kind of errand you could possibly need to run in a place like this..."

The store they had just entered was a rather upscale boutique which appeared to mostly cater to rich young ladies.

Yashiro relented under the onslaught of metaphysical glitter, and replied, "If you must know, I'm buying a watch."

"A watch?" Ren repeated, looking at his manager oddly. "Can you even wear a watch...?"

Yashiro snorted.

"You know very well that I can't."

"Then why are you buying one?" Ren asked bluntly. Considering the shop they were in, the reason wasn't hard to guess... but Ren couldn't be sure without hearing it.

Yashiro's cheeks took on a faint red tinge as he admitted, "I'm replacing one that I accidentally broke."

"Oh?" Ren inquired with a teasing grin, his sparkles out in full force. "And the one you broke wouldn't happen to belong to Kotonami-san, would it?"

Yashiro didn't answer, pretending to be absorbed in his task of choosing an item to purchase. His reaction only served to confirm the actor's suspicions.

"But..." Ren said slowly. "That would mean you grabbed her wrist, for longer than ten seconds..."

~oOo~


	5. Killer Sparkles & the Broken Watch Story

**A/N: Dear readers, please forgive me for posting a half-finished piece of crap for chapter 5 before. (I was worried about taking too much time between updates. I suppose I should be more worried about the quality of what I'm posting...)** **Anyway, here is the finished chapter. Enjoy.**

 **Also, I'm assuming Yashiro is extremely nearsighted, which would make him pretty close to being blind without his glasses.**

~ Sidelines ~

It had been several days since Yashiro had given the new watch to Kanae, and Ren - having never received an actual explanation as to how the girl's watch had been broken in the first place - had taken to teasing his manager about it at every opportunity, in the hopes of prodding him into actually admitting what had happened. Unfortunately for them, Lory happened to overhear one of these conversations and summoned both men to his office.

Scowling at them from behind his desk, the president asked, "What's this I hear about Yashiro harassing young women?"

"What?" Yashiro yelped, his cheeks taking on a faint red tinge. "I am not harassing her!"

 _Hmm... he said 'her', not 'anyone'. So, it's one specific young woman?_

Before Lory had a chance to voice his thoughts, though, Ren decided to speak up to save his manager further embarrassment.

"I'm sorry if my teasing got out of hand. I didn't mean to imply that my manager had actually engaged in any inappropriate behavior."

Lory stared at the actor speculatively for a long moment before turning to address Yashiro.

"You know, if you would just tell Ren the whole story about the watch, I'm sure he'd stop pestering you about it." He paused. "You'll probably never live down the name thing, though. A lot of people heard Kotonami-kun yelling at you that day, and it's been among the more popular gossip around LME since then."

Ren turned to Yashiro with an extra-sparkly smile and said, "Yes, please tell me the _whole story_ about the watch."

"There's not much to tell," Yashiro replied, slumping down in his seat a bit in a vain attempt to shield himself from the killer sparkles. "I had lost my glasses..." He decided to refrain from mentioning that Maria had caught him sleeping at his desk and thought it would be funny to hide his glasses from him. Of course, he hadn't found that out for himself until after he'd accidentally fried his cell phone in his panic and then gone out blundering around in the halls before he remembered that he kept a spare pair of glasses in his office.

"And?" Ren prompted when it looked like Yashiro wasn't going to continue speaking.

"I ran into the LoveMe girls in the hall... quite literally. Kanae-chan took it upon herself to walk me back to my office."

"That still doesn't explain the broken watch..."

"She was holding my hand to keep me from running into things!"

~oOo~


	6. The Advent of Yukihito Junior

~ Sidelines ~

"But you can't keep a dog. Your apartment building doesn't allow pets," Ren tried to reason with his manager.

"No! You can't make me give him up!" Yashiro argued, his eyes brimming with tears as he hugged the puppy to his chest. "And besides, he's grown attached to me already! Yukihito Junior is my baby!"

As Ren tried to think of an argument that might actually get through to the older man in his emotionally agitated state, Kanae - who had stumbled upon the pair during the tail end of their argument - piped up, "Did you really name that dog after yourself?"

"Um..." Yashiro hesitated to answer, realizing he'd just made a fool of himself in front of the girl he liked.

Kanae didn't really need the confirmation, having clearly heard him call it 'Yukihito Junior' just a moment before. Reaching out to pat the puppy's head, the girl said, "Shouldn't you at least call it Koyuki or something?"

"Oh, yes. That would be cuter," Yashiro agreed, relieved that she wasn't making fun of him or trying to convince him not to keep the puppy.

"So... you really want to keep this puppy, then?"

"Kanae-chan~!"

She flinched a bit from the sudden wave of hopeful sparkles and, completely forgetting to scold him for using her first name so casually, replied somewhat apprehensively, "...what?"

"Could it be... that maybe... your apartment complex allows pets?"

"No," she answered flatly. The sparkle cloud dimmed considerably and she hastened to add, "But I do know a place we could take him!"

Of course, she would regret that offer later...

~oOo~

 **A/N: So, uh... combining Yashiro's canonical desire to have a pet dog with his fangirl-y tendencies, my brain came up with this.**

 **Can you guess where they're going to take the puppy? You should be able to guess... it's not hard to figure out. I've tormented Yashiro enough for now, I think, so it's time to torment Kanae for a few chapters~**


	7. Welcome to Kanae's Private Hell

~ Sidelines ~

"There will be a slight detour before I drop you off today," Ren informed Kyoko as they were walking to his car together. "I hope you don't mind."

"A detour?" the girl repeated, nonplussed.

"Yes. I'm sorry it's a bit out of the way, but Yashiro has an errand..." he trailed off as they reached their destination and all of Kyoko's attention was consumed by the fact that Kanae was waiting in the car.

She didn't even notice the puppy until it wriggled out of Yashiro's arms, jumped into her lap, and started licking her face.

"Ooh, a puppy!" Kyoko squealed excitedly. She petted Koyuki as it continued to lick her. "Wait, why is there a puppy in here?"

"So, like I was _saying_ ," Kanae said, clearly irritated at having to repeat herself (although she should be used to Kyoko's tune-outs by now), "we're taking Yuki-chan's puppy to its new home today. That's all. Stop getting so worked up over it."

Kyoko gave her friend an odd look and said, "You're still calling him 'Yuki-chan'?"

"He's still calling me 'Kanae-chan', so that's what he's getting called!" Kanae snapped, scowling. The light blush that broke out across her cheeks at this pronouncement was almost unnoticeable, and although Kyoko - being hyper-aware of all things concerning her best friend - _did_ notice it, she decided not to call attention to it in order to avoid embarrassing the other girl any further.

* * *

"You can drop us off here."

"Here?" Ren asked skeptically. They were in the middle of a middle-class residential neighborhood.

Kanae pinned him with a baleful glare and replied flatly, "Yeah."

"Alright, if you say so," Ren conceded with his patented sparkly Gentleman Smile™, and pulled over to the side of the road so that Kanae and Yashiro could get out of the car.

"Hey, isn't this-" Kyoko started, but Kanae cut her off.

"Yes. Shut up."

Kyoko got teary-eyed and whined to Ren, "Waaahhh, Moko-san told me to shut up!"

* * *

"Try not to be too shocked, or anything."

That was all the warning Yashiro got before Kanae strode up to the door of a rather normal-looking house and knocked. He rushed to catch up with her, and barely had time to note that the nameplate on the front of the house read _Kotonami_ before the door was flung open from the inside.

"Kanae's here!" the woman who answered the door - presumably Kanae's sister - called out, and a horde of children stampeded into the front hallway to greet them.

"Kanae's here, and she has a _puppy_!" the oldest Kotonami brother shouted in surprise.

"Kanae's here, and she brought a _guy_ home!" the second-oldest brother cried out, sounding equally shocked.

Any further comments by the elder siblings were drowned out by the children's excited cries of "Onee-chan!" and "Puppy!"

~oOo~


	8. Snake Eyes

**A/N: I had not originally intended for this collection to be so scattered... This chapter is part of the broken watch storyline, not the puppy storyline. (I will eventually rearrange the chapters into correct chronological order.)**

~ Sidelines ~

Maria Takarada giggled at Natsuko the anaconda, as the snake slowly shook its head. The animal was apparently trying to figure out what the thing was that the human girl had placed on its face.

"What are you doing, Maria?"

The child jumped guiltily at the sound of her grandfather's voice.

"I was just playing with Natsuko, Grandfather!" she answered nervously, trying to surreptitiously stand in front of the snake but only succeeding in making herself look more suspicious.

"Mariaaaaa... What did you do?"

"Nothing," Maria lied. The child was no actress, however, and her tone and expression clearly betrayed her panic.

Natsuko slithered over to Lory, wanting to be petted. There was a soft clink as the item that had been decorating the snake's face dropped to the floor.

"Did you put glasses on Natsuko?" Lory asked, frowning as he looked at the object on the ground. Why did that particular pair of glasses look familiar to him, and why was his granddaughter acting so guilty over such a silly... "Hey, wait. Are these _Yashiro's_ glasses?"

The child's guilty face was answer enough.

"Maria! If you find lost objects, you should attempt to return it to the owner, not play with them!" Lory scolded.

The look of relief on his granddaughter's face at this admonishment struck him as odd.

 _Eeeek, grandfather is starting to get a scary aura_. And with that thought, Maria promptly made a full confession of her "prank", hoping that her honestly would help lighten the punishment that she was due.

* * *

As he was about to barge into Yashiro's office to return the purloined pair of glasses, Lory paused with his hand on the door handle as he heard voices from inside.

"Huh, that's weird," came a cool female voice.

"What's weird?" Yashiro asked curiously.

"My watch stopped."

"Oh... I'm sorry about that. I'll replace it for you, of course."

"Why would you do that?"

"Well, because, it's my fault..." Yashiro trailed off awkwardly.

"Why would you think it's your fault that my watch stopped working? It's probably just a dead battery."

It took Lory a moment to place the female voice, and he was a bit surprised to realize it was Kanae Kotonami, and she was having a protracted and not-entirely-unpleasant discussion with Ren's manager. Instead of interrupting their conversation, the nosy president continued to eavesdrop as Yashiro explained his unfortunate situation with electronics to the young actress.

~oOo~


End file.
